Her Patients
by NiceFwoops
Summary: She's seen many things. She's seen men and women with swelled noses and dancing feet, people with their own clothes strangling them. She's seen gray-faced lovers and cheery mothers. She's seen the dying and the living alike, and she does the same thing for each of them, the same thing she's done for many years. She beckons them in. Written for the QLFC about a sentient item.


written for the fanfiction quidditch league competition. im keeper for the falmouth falcons and i had to write about a sentience item. they said be creative, so i picked the st. mungo's mannequin. :)

* * *

She's seen many things. She's seen men and women with swelled noses and dancing feet, people with their own clothes strangling them. She's seen gray-faced lovers and cheery mothers. She's seen the dying and the living alike, and she does the same thing for each of them, the same thing she's done for many years.

She beckons them in.

* * *

She watches and wonders if the young man is ever going to come in.

He walks by nearly every day in the summer. Often he stops and stares, eyes fixed on her as his jaw works. The Muggles whisper around him, and when Muggles whisper she is supposed to alert the inside, but she can't, not when this man's blue eyes are so full of pain, hidden behind his half-moon glasses.

Are you hurt, she wants to ask. But she doesn't, not because she can't talk, but because she knows she's not supposed to.

He almost comes in once, almost taps on the glass. She sees his hand hover, bony fingers shaking. He leaves instead, and it many years before she sees him again, older and more powerful, bearded now, but she thinks that he has the same sad eyes.

He comes often, for a man with no family.

* * *

The first time the fighter comes in, he is screaming. Not like most do, she notices, and not in the muted way most of her visitors do, trying not to be noticed by the Muggles as they clamp their teeth together.

No, this man is screaming and he wants everyone to know it. Three men are holding him down, trying to stop him form writhing and thrashing, but they still haven't kept him down completely, and his hand smashes against her glass as they get him close.

"Sorry!" one of the men shouts frantically, forgetting he isn't supposed to care about her.

The screaming man kicks it up a notch, and she noticed the blood seeping from his shirt for the first time. No, she thinks, seeping isn't right. The blood is soaking the shirt, pouring onto the ground where it runs in rivulets. One of the men casts a spell behind him so no one can see them, as Muggles have begun to notice.

"Hey!" yells a man, and she realize he is speaking to her. She can hear him now that the glass is broken. She likes his voice, frantic as it is.

She beckons him in a fraction too late, thrown off by her sudden addition to the world of sound. She can hear cars in the street and the Muggles on the pavement and the man's scream turns to moans and his helpers shout "Alastor, Alastor, stay with us!"

Then they're gone, and she is left with the sound for over an hour, until a worker is sent out to fix the glass.

Alastor survives. She knows this because she sees him again, not only when he leaves, but many times after that. Every time he comes he is bleeding, and every time he leaves he is a little more scarred, but she doesn't mind. She is glad to know he is still out there.

* * *

At first she thinks he is a visitor. The first time she sees him, he is not injured. He is only pale and quiet and small, but there is no mark on him that she can see.

He confuses her, because he is treated like the sick by those around him. It takes her a long time to remember that there are other entrances, that some of her patients come by fire and other magic. He must have been one of those. She is not sorry. She does not want to see him bleeding.

Eventually he grows, and he keeps coming. She wonders about him. Most of her patients she can figure out, but not him. She can sense magic in him, even through the glass. It must be a magical sickness to keep him coming back, but magic usually leaves a larger than life trace; she has seen wizards hide balloon feet and pus-encrusted hands, witches straining to keep a bite wound from oozing green slime or a violent trombone from strangling them. The only thing this boys seems is sad.

There is a lull in his visits, and then he is back, with different people. They are alive, and they make him alive. They're all different than him, so loud she can almost hear them, so vibrant she can feel their colors. A black-haired man with glasses grins at her sad man, and he grins back.

Then they stop coming. She forgets about them, because she is concerned with other things, with the dark shadows in the night and the screams that come from within, how there are four times as many patients and all of them are gushing blood. She thinks that the hospital is not safe. Once a man in a hood points his wand at her, and her arm falls off. A woman fixes it in the morning, but she never forgets that long, painful night.

She only sees him again when it is all over, days after the final rush of patients. She has never seen him look so tired. She understands that something big has happened, that people are rejoicing around the world, that some dark powers have fallen. He has not been rejoicing; she can see it in his eyes. He stares at her for a long second, lips splitting into a hysterical grin, and collapses to the ground, the top of his light brown hair all she can see.

That's the last smile she sees from him for a long, long time.

* * *

She only meets The Boy Who Lived once, but she likes him. She has learned about him from the newspapers, the ones people aren't supposed to drop but do, floating around this Muggle area so much that occasionally Ministry workers have to do mind-wipes. She learns all of this from the papers. She is surprised to find that she can read, but really she isn't. The person who'd enchanted her had done a fine job, had made her so well that she never needs to be repaired. People forgot about her because of it, but it means she can read, so she thinks it is a fair trade-off.

He looks just like the pictures. She doesn't think he looks like a liar or an attention-seeker. She remembers the days before The Boy Who Lived, the misery, the fear. He looks just like the pictures, except more confused. She likes that. Save us again, she thinks. You-Know-Who is back. Please save us again.

* * *

She is in a lull when they come by. It is happening more often lately. It is hard to pull herself out of them, to make it so she is alert and not just mindlessly beckoning. She is old, and that has been forgotten. She is well-made, but no one is perfect.

The old man with the half-moon glasses raises a wrinkled hand. The men and women behind him stop dead. The scarred one bares his lips in annoyance, while the one with light brown hair tilts his head.

The old man waves his hand, and she feels the wash of magic.

"What are you doing?" asks a woman with bubblegum pink hair. "Why'd you stop? Aren't we in a hurry?"

"I was fixing a design flaw," said the old man, turning to her. "Can you hear us now?"

"What?" said the woman. "Why do you want her to hear us? She's always creeped me out."

"Not me," says Remus Lupin quietly.

"Nor me," says Albus Dumbledore.

"Even though she never smiles?" asks the woman.

"She's always smiled for me," says Alastor Moody.

She beckons them in.

* * *

hope you liked it:)


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